Your hosts this week Lynn, Marc with a contribution from Carmel
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Canada’s Immigration Minister John McCallum told the Senate he would consider putting a moratorium on the process whereby Canadians have their citizenship revoked if they are found to have misrepresented themselves on their applications.
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyer havegone to court to ask that all revocations be stopped until the government changes the law which allows for such stripping of citizenship without a hearing. They say the process violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Lynn spoke to Senator Ratna Omidvar, who said she plans to introduce amendments of her own, saying revocation of citizenship is a very serious matter that can affect not just the individuals, but their families as well.
A federal Liberal party politician introduced a bill in the Canadian Parliament which would have amended aspects of several laws in order to give greater protection to animals from cruelty and abuse
This would have meant modifications to laws relating to animal welfare which have not been greatly modified since the late 1800’s.
It would also have banned such horrific practices as the import and sale of shark fins, used in an Asian soup as a status symbol but which causes the slow painful death of hundreds of thousands of sharks each year.
Other aspects would have prevented the import of dog and cat fur, and required proper labelling of fur products as some imports from Asia are deliberately mislabelled as rabbit fur or coyote fur.
Of course clear cases of cruelty and abuse of domestic pets and farm/commercial animals would also have had laws strengthened.
In spite of the good intentions, the bill was defeated by the majority Liberal government. In this shortened version Marc spoke with Rebecca Aldworth, the Executive Director of Humane Society International-Canada
- Canadian song- jazz singer/crooner Matt Dusk– “Feels Good”
Homa Hoodfar is a retired professor of anthropology living in Montreal.
Originally from Iran, she has dual nationality with Canadian and Iranian passports.
She took a trip back to visit friends earlier this year and continue some research, but ended up arrested by the Revolutionary Guards and held in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison in June.
She was apparently charged with, “collaborating with a hostile government, propaganda against the state” and also apparently a charge of “dabbling in feminism”.
It was only after intervention by the the Canadian government that she was released in September.
Upon her return she gave an interview to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about her stay in the prison, and the conditions there.
We have an excerpt.
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